Search results
ether. Michelson-Morley experiment, an attempt to detect the velocity of Earth with respect to the hypothetical luminiferous ether, a medium in space proposed to carry light waves. First performed in Germany in 1880–81 by the physicist A.A. Michelson, the test was later refined in 1887 by Michelson and Edward W. Morley in the United States.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Research fields. Past experiments. Current experiments. Scientists. v. t. e. The Michelson–Morley experiment was an attempt to measure the motion of the Earth relative to the luminiferous aether, [A 1] a supposed medium permeating space that was thought to be the carrier of light waves. The experiment was performed between April and July 1887 ...
May 9, 2020 · The Michelson-Morley experiment was performed by American scientists Albert Michelson and Edward Morley between April and July 1887. The purpose of this experiment is to prove the existence of ether. This hypothetical medium permeating space was thought to be the carrier of light waves. This experiment aimed to measure the speed of light in two ...
- How It Was Supposed to Work
- The Results
- Source
By the end of the 1800s, the dominant theory of how light worked was that it was a wave of electromagnetic energy, because of experiments such as Young's double slit experiment. The problem is that a wave had to move through some sort of medium. Something has to be there to do the waving. Light was known to travel through outer space (which scienti...
The result was disappointing because they found absolutely no evidence of the relative motion bias they were looking for. No matter which path the beam took, light seemed to be moving at precisely the same speed. These results were published in 1887. One other way to interpret the results at the time was to assume that the ether was somehow connect...
Find the full text of their paper published in the 1887 edition of the American Journal of Science, archived online at the AIP website.
Michelson calculated that an aether windspeed of only one or two miles a second would have observable effects in this experiment, so if the aether windspeed was comparable to the earth’s speed in orbit around the sun, it would be easy to see. In fact, nothingwas observed. The light intensity did not vary at all.
People also ask
What was the Michelson-Morley experiment?
Why did Michelson work with Edward Morley?
How does the Michelson-Morley experiment determine the speed of light?
Why did Michelson & Morley not find a shift in the fringes?
The Michelson-Morley interferometer was set up to float on a bath of mercury. This allowed it to be rotated with minimal friction. An interference pattern would be observed with one beam of light being slowed by the aether wind. Rotating the interferometer would then affect the phase difference of the beams differently, causing a phase shift in ...
First off, the Michelson-Morley experiment ran in 1887. It did find a small positive effect (not the null or zero effect often mentioned) Second, between 1906 and mid-1930s, Dayton Miller ran a series of experiments that did find solid positive results for ether 'wind.'
- 8 min
